Solving Riddle
by FairyHunter
Summary: [HPxAF crossover] REVISED. Ever noticed the similarities between Artemis Fowl and Tom Riddle? Well, Artemis and Tom have. Oneshot. [Warnings: Slash, torture, murder] 12LH: Crossover.


Disclaimer: JKR doesn't own Artemis Fowl. Eoin Colfer doesn't own Tom Riddle. I don't own anything except the unabashedly unexplained timeline shift.

A/N: Yep, just pretend I explain why Tom Riddle is alive in Artemis Fowl's time. ((Wait, here's the explanation: Riddle/Artemis is OTP.))

Concstructive criticism is terrible for my skin, so be sure not to give me any in reviews. Also, I would absolutely not lavish you with gifts of chocolates and graphing calculators if you could think of a less shamefully lame title for this fic. (Oh, how I love reverse psychology.)

Many thanks to the marvelous Lily, who was the marvelous beta. And you should go read Mossy's (TheHumbleMosquito's) adaption of this fic after you finish mine (Mossy's is called Admiration).

12LH: Crossover.

**Warnings:** Slash, torture, murder (because you can't spell Voldemort without "mort").

* * *

**Solving Riddle**

J. K. Rowling got me all wrong. The foolish woman said that I had never loved, never been loved. She knows nothing of my experiences with love. She calls me evil. How often have I explained that there is no such thing?

Not often enough, apparently.

If only she knew about my love. It doesn't seem so long ago when I found myself in love with this marvelous boy, raven black hair neatly combed, pale face handsome. What a tale it was...

---

I had read the books about him. A kidnapper with a conscience, a cross-species thief, a boy perhaps almost as intelligent as myself. But I believe what struck me most of all was his acceptance of the supernatural, for he was a Muggle. A Muggle accepting that magic was real, and not explaining it away with some excuse! Who would have guessed? He reminded me of myself; I had quite readily believed in my own magic when that self-righteous Dumbledore first told me. He had narrowly escaped spending his life in an orphanage as I had. His mother had been bedridden for two years before he manipulated a fairy into curing her magically; had his mother been prey to insanity any longer, they'd have carted her off and sent him to a dreadful existence as an orphan.

The physical descriptions of Artemis - for that was his name - were also similar in nature to mine. I couldn't help but wonder.

So I sent Artemis a letter. I told him of the similarities I'd spotted. I asked what he made of them. I mentioned how I admired his acceptance of magic despite his being a Muggle.

He replied using an owl even though I'd sent him my letter by Muggle post.

_Dear Tom Riddle,_

_Yes, I've read about your school, Hogwarts. The fairies have books about Wizards, but they tend not to associate with your kind. They don't like Wizards' magic because they think it obscene that a Wizard need not "refill" oneself with magic after using a certain amount. Ironically, the fairies' obsession with obtaining their magic often entirely eclipses their usages of it. Wizards seem rarely to run into such limitations. _

_I would be delighted to learn more about magic. The fairies refuse to give me any books about magic itself. They do not trust me. It is a pity that I was short-sighted enough in my youthful encounters to alienate them from the very beginning. But it is not wise to dwell on what could have been._

_You say you look like me? Perhaps we can compare countenances better by meeting in person. You'll also be able to teach me more about magic that way. When and where shall we convene?_

_With all due respect,_

_Artemis Fowl II_

And so, out of curiosity about one another, we made plans to meet at Fowl Manor about a week from then when there was a Hogsmeade weekend and my absence would not be easily noticed. I would take the Knight Bus.

I wasn't going to be passing through any Muggle-populated areas - besides Artemis' home, of course - so I decided to don my full wizard getup. I wore my most impressive black cloak, my Slytherin robes, my black pointed hat with its lining of silver, and my Prefect badge. I wanted to impress him, and perhaps to intimidate him, for some reason. This was also a little test to see what he really thought about wizards. If he laughed...

The ringing of the doorbell was loud - it had a big house to ring through - and it seemed that Fowl Manor itself was coming to life, waking up. The great double doors, which were reminiscent of Hogwarts', were opened almost at once. I was expected; that was a good sign.

Artemis had told me about Butler, but his immensity still shocked me. I didn't let my face show my sudden fear, but in my head I noted all the Muggle weapons he was carrying. I slipped my hand into my pocket and grasped my wand - just in case.

Butler looked disapproving of his principal's choice of acquaintances, but said nothing more than, "Right this way, sir."

It was a beautiful place. Everything was old, but sturdy, elaborate. There were portraits everywhere. I was once more reminded of Hogwarts. I almost commented on the stillness of the paintings before remembering that Artemis was a Muggle.

It seemed Artemis was eager to meet me. He was standing in the doorway of what was presumably his room, looking impatient despite himself. When he saw me walking down the hall, robes billowing, his reaction was much like mine when I saw Butler. A shade of fear danced behind his eyes for but an instant before he composed himself. He could sense my power. He had passed the test.

He did look very much like me. He was like a Muggle version of myself, the way that Butler's weaponry was a mundane manifestation of the Avada Kedavra. I wondered whether there was a pureblood version of myself somewhere; I could only hope.

We shook hands and made our formal introductions. Butler had left by now. I did not like Butler. He was skeptical of my ability. I could tell.

We discussed our family histories. It turned out that Artemis was quite proud of his surname and how far back it went. He thought less of most people who weren't named Fowl. I confessed that I did not know much about my family.

"I lived in an orphanage all my life. My mother died giving birth to me and my father..." My tongue balked at my father. The man had never cared about me or my mother. He had never even known me, nor I him. I explained as much to Artemis when my words came back.

"My mother must have been a Muggle. She wouldn't have died if she had magical powers. And I don't know anything about... him."

Artemis suggested that I do some research to find out more about my roots. I said that it sounded like a good idea.

"Could you show me your wand?" The question erupted out of Artemis's mouth. I could tell this was what he'd been waiting for. I obligingly pulled the cylinder of yew from my pocket. I didn't give it to him, just held it up for him to look at. He raised his hand, as if to touch it or take it from me, but I raised my eyebrows, warningly, and he made no further move to take my wand. He was entranced, eyes a-boggle.

"How, exactly, does it work?" I said I didn't quite know myself, but it did have a phoenix tail feather inside of it.

"Other wands have other types of magical things inside. Unicorn tails, dragon heartstrings, and phoenix feathers are the most popular in Britain." I went on to talk about all the different types of wood that were used, what the best lengths for wands were, and how all these factors affected the magical capabilities of the wand. He listened, nodding comprehendingly, and staring all the while at the wand I had placed just out of his reach on the coffee table between us.

"Fascinating!" he said again and again. Occasionally, he would voice a conclusion he had drawn from solely what I had told him. Most of them were surprisingly correct.

And, "How exactly does a wand choose a wizard?"

I did my best to answer his questions. He was very quick to learn.

At one point, he asked me why I was telling him all of these things. "Your kind can't be called well-known. It just seems odd what you're doing."

I told him that I knew he wouldn't share any of this anyone unless there was something in it for him. I had, after all, read the books about him. He hadn't told anyone about the fairies as of yet.

He accepted this, though he was still a little skeptical. What I didn't say was that I didn't believe his telling anyone would really do anything. He wouldn't be able to find us; and who would believe his claims of wizardry? The fairies hide because they are too weak to fight back; we hide because we don't want to be ever pestered by the mundane problems of the Muggles.

Time passed. Far too soon it was time for me to leave. It had been quite the enjoyable day. We made arrangements to meet for a second time. We shook hands and grinned as, I'm sure, neither of us has before grinned. We both knew that this friendship would flourish.

In between our first and second meeting, I looked through the old Hogwarts records and books on wizarding genealogy for my parents. I found nothing at all about anyone by the name of Riddle. So, my father was a Muggle. My mother was a witch, then? I hoped so. I couldn't stand the thought of being a filthy Mudblood.

But I never knew her name, so the Hogwarts records of students would do me no good.

When I returned to Artemis, I dressed as a Muggle. Butler's glare was not quite so cold this time.

I told him that I'd researched and my father was a Muggle. As I was telling him how I would hate to be a Mudblood, I realized tears were running down my cheeks. I had never cried in front of anyone before - I suppose I showed my feelings so because I didn't think of him as even a remote threat. I did turn my face away in shame, but Artemis just stood up and came over to me. He held out a silken handkerchief in silence. He was not revolted by my tears like I was.

"Tom, you're a great wizard no matter your history."

I wiped my face rapidly. I pointed out that he himself had extolled the importance of family history. Family history, he had responded, is not as important as what you make of yourself. His uncharateristically clichéd words confused me until I realized that Artemis was merely trying to steer the conversation away from my hate of Mudbloods. He himself probably still hoped to have undiscovered magic coursing through his Muggle veins.

Though I never again said it out loud, I still thought that being a Mudblood was a terrible fate. It would mean that I deserved no magic; it would mean my powers were a mistake that might easily have happened to someone else instead.

I had long since handed the handkerchief back. I resolved aloud to search even harder for my mother. She had to be a witch, she just had to. I would look for the name Marvolo this time, I decided. That was my middle name, and it might be significant. I'd do anything to prove I wasn't a simple Mudblood.

Artemis switched the topic again.

"Can you show me some magic?" He looked expectant, excited.

I explained the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Magic. His face fell, however imperceptibly.

He also asked whether he could come to a magical place to see me next time. I said no. I explained that Muggles couldn't enter magical establishments. I kept secret that I just didn't want him to go to places of magic. I would hate to be seen with a Muggle.

The time to leave had come once more. "Until we meet again."

I spent a month looking through student records and genealogies and the like. I was only lucky that Marvolo was such an uncommon name. I found three instances of note and two of them were so far back in wizarding history that it was improbable that I was named after either of them. That left just Marvolo Gaunt. If he was related to me, he would be my grandfather, based on his age, and that would make his daughter, Merope Gaunt, my mother. The book provided the proper date for her death. I felt elated. My powers were not a mistake. I would learn everything I could about the Gaunts.

Meticulously, I traced the line of my family back and back and back. They were all pureblood, every one, which only made me happier. It got quite dull after trawling through a few centuries of names. I did, however, stubbornly persist. Nothing very interesting did I discover until I realized I was a descendant of Salazar Slytherin himself. It would explain my ability to speak Parseltongue. I instantly became obsessed with the founder of my House. The Hogwarts library gladly fed me books upon books about Salazar.

It turns out that I was not only a descendant of Slytherin, but the only living descendant. I had heard about the Chamber of Secrets before, but only now did I realize that I was the Heir of Slytherin. I had the power to get rid of all the unworthy Mudbloods!

"I can frighten them away from Hogwarts with the monster that lives in the Chamber. Oh, isn't it excellent?" I had just finished relating my discoveries of the past month to my close friend.

He smiled in agreement, happy that I had found happiness.

"Artemis, it's so hard to believe that you're a Muggle sometimes. You're so like me."

We talked about the Chamber of Secrets for a time. He wanted to know about my being a Parselmouth. "You've known how to speak with snakes all your life?" He then speculated about the similarity between my Parseltongue and the fairies' gift of tongues.

Somehow, we ended up kissing. I had been showing him the beauty of the language of the snakes and he had asked me to teach it to him. I had tried to demonstrate to him how to place his tongue and he had tried to imitate me. I had laughed at his miserable attempt and he had, too. One of us (it is impossible to remember who, considering what then followed) had suggested that perhaps I ought to use my tongue to mold his into the proper shape. It was, of course, a silly idea for the purposes of teaching Artemis Parseltongue, but it was a brilliant one for the purposes we had neither of us thought of until just then.

It was strange to think that I had fallen in love with a Muggle, until I remembered that my mother, Merope, had done the same. I decided that Muggles were not bad as a whole - it was just those ones that thought they could be equal to us wizards. Artemis knew he would never be able to do magic properly, but that didn't stop him from being enchanted, as it were, with learning about magic.

This parting was the hardest of all our meetings. We wished for a little more time to adjust to the sudden and rather unexpected transition from friendship to love. I promised to be back as soon as I could.

At Hogwarts, I immersed myself in lore about the Chamber of Secrets. It was a while before I found the entrance. Not until my third reread of Slytherin's autobiography did I see that he had left a message in Parseltongue - obviously for me, the Heir of Slytherin. It told me to search the bathrooms for a carved snake. Over the next few weeks, I took far more bathroom breaks than I truly needed and scoured every inch of the bathrooms, but to no avail.

I mentioned it to Artemis in between embraces. "Have you checked all the girls' restrooms, as well? You probably should - the bathrooms are not necessarily for the same gender as they were a thousand years ago." Then he added, teasingly, "Don't worry, I won't get jealous."

And there was the answer. Artemis was right, of course. "Open," I whispered experimentally in Parseltongue. I slid excitedly down the pipe that had appeared. It was only a matter of hours before I knew every secret the Chamber held. I realized that the basilisk, the great monster of Slytherin, would most likely not frighten the Mudbloods, but kill them. My lips formed a smile, for this feeling of power I now had was more intoxicating than Artemis's gaze of blue.

"Speak to me, Slytherin, Greatest of the Hogwarts Four."

It was with pleasure that I informed Artemis of the two attacks on Mudbloods I'd caused so far. He seemed glad about that. I believe he was resentful towards those Muggles who had been endowed with magic, since he had not been one of them. I perceived this and told him that it was foolish to want to be in their place, for theirs was not a proper magic anyway.

When Olive Hornby mocked the Mudblood with the glasses, when the Mudblood ran crying into the bathroom containing the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, I knew exactly what to do. I would kill the girl. She wouldn't be able to escape in time.

I called my basilisk. It did not fail to kill this time. I felt a chill run down my spine when the Mudblood looked in shock upon the king of serpents. But then it passed, and a wave of victory engulfed me. I felt like I could do anything: rid the world of Muggles trying to be something they're not, live forever, find my wizarding relatives.

Then the talk about shutting down Hogwarts began. I couldn't have that. I couldn't stand the thought of living in the Muggle world for the rest of my life. So I framed the oaf Rubeus Hagrid and closed the Chamber.

And then everything changed. Or rather, nothing changed, except my own perceptions.

I told Artemis about killing the Mudblood. "You killed, Tom?" He sounded either disgusted or impressed, or perhaps both. His next words clarified the matter.

"Tom, that is not right." His face was stricken, afraid.

"So speaks the boy who steals from fairies."

"Yes, I have committed crimes before, but only victimless crimes. Only petty crimes of money. Never anything evil."

"Good and evil? Right and wrong? These are not real things. You know this, surely." When he shook his head and opened his mouth to argue, I quickly cut him off.

"There is no good or evil, only power. It is kill or be killed, Artemis. Would you still say murder is _evil -_" I spat the false word "- if I murdered the one who was about to kill you? What if I took the life of a corrupt leader who was oppressing his subjects? Now that would be _just,_ and _moral,_ and _noble._"

But Artemis could not so easily shake off the ideals he had had his whole life. His eyes darted towards the door, though he knew Butler wasn't here. Artemis tended to send Butler on tedious errands whenever I came so that the two of us could be more alone. Butler tended not to object, because he still didn't like my wizardly nature, yet he implicitly trusted Artemis's judgment of me.

"I disagree. Some things are definitely evil. You did not kill in self-defense or for the greater good, you just killed! Such arbitrary violence is wrong."

I smiled mirthlessly. "On the contrary, I put a Mudblood out of her misery. She never did anything but weep. So now it was a mercy killing - and it got rid of one unworthy of magic. You must see how _righteous_ I have been."

As I spoke, I walked imperiously towards my lover, holding his gaze.

"Any deed," I continued, "can be argued to be either good or evil, from a certain perspective. What cannot be argued is power - power is quantitative."

He backed away, but soon enough ran up against a wal;.

"You're abusing your magic. Do they allow into Hogwarts any madman who knows where Ollivander's is?"

I drew nearer.

"Mad! I'm not mad! You Muggles always do this to me! 'I hate Tom, because he's different and has magic. Tom is insane, because he's diferent.' I didn't think you were like that, Artemis, I didn't, but it appears you hate my magic, too!"

He told me - quietly because of my proximity and his timidity - that he did not hate my magic, but the way I had used magic.

But I was too angry already and his words only made me angrier. I drew my wand, but then slowly replaced it. I raised my hands instead. Just like I had used to do before going to Hogwarts.

"Artemis, I'm going to teach you about power again. I am not going to kill you, even though I most certainly could. I am going to take your only power away from you. No more will you have a sane mind."

"No!" I pinioned him with a kiss. "Kill me, but don't take my intellect! I beg of you."

I laughed a high, cold laugh I had never heard before. "So now killing is right and letting you live is wrong. All because I told you of what was in my power!" Comprehension finally dawned on his pale, paler than usual, face.

But understanding had come too late.

"Muggle geniuses never survive long, anyway. They always die or go mad at _such_ young ages. But I - I will never die."

"Living forever must grow wearisome."

I replied that weariness was better than death; the dead necessarily have no power.

"You could have helped me take the world, Artemis. Why did you make me do this? You could have been first among my subjects." I twisted my hands sharply in the air. A blood-curdling (not my blood, but perhaps his) scream erupted unwillingly from his lips. I repeated the motion. I would torture him into insanity.

"Stop! Please! Tom, please!" But I knew from experience that I shouldn't stop until he no longer had the mental capacity to ask me to stop - this irony made me laugh.

I continued laughing for a time, twisting my hands through the air all the while.

"Stop. Stop..." Though his protests grew feebler and feebler, his wordless shrieks grew louder and louder.

He gave an unusually loud yell and begged no more. He was trying to fool me into stopping. I can always tell when I'm being lied to. I carried on, though slightly surprised how coherent his thoughts still were.

As I felt his last sense of self dissipate, I let my hands fall to my sides. I watched Artemis's empty body; it still twitched occasionally. My laughter finally faded.

---

Love is a strange thing, especially when it is not interpreted correctly. For it was then, as his broken person lay on the floor, that I noticed I hadn't loved Artemis, but rather my own self manifested in Artemis. It made sense: We looked alike and there were all those other similarities I'd perceived so long ago. I had never completely trusted Artemis; I was the only one I'd ever trusted. I decided that if ever I felt the urge for any more of those tender kisses, I would simply clone myself.

In fact, I did clone myself, in a way. As I looked upon what had once been Artemis, I remembered a book I had found in the Chamber of Secrets. This book had told me about powerful devices called Horcruxes and how to make them. I had rehearsed the curse for hours in the privacy of my thoughts, just in case an opportunity ever appeared. And who could pass up an opportunity like the one I had that day with Artemis: no witnesses, a person to blame (Butler, of course), and the victim completely powerless already - being powerless is nearly the same as being dead, especially when there is no possibility of recovering the lost power. It had been all too easy to take a blank diary from his desk and perform the necessary spells to make it into Horcrux. It had been all too easy to break his neck, even with untraceable wandless magic. As his life - and his soul - left him, a part of my soul was also wrenched out of me, but instead of dissipating as Artemis's would, mine was channeled into the diary.

That was the part of me that had almost cared enough about Artemis to let him live. It was ironic to the point of cruelty that this fraction of my soul was being locked away in a reminder of the murder it hadn't had the courage to stop. I hope it has since learned its lesson.

They say narcissism is a terrible crime, for it leads to selfishness. I disagree. If no one loved themselves, no one would trust or respect themselves. Nothing great would ever be done, for no one would much care about their achievements.

They say that pride is a terrible crime, for it leads to arrogance. I disagree. I have a perfectly realistic idea of my capabilities. It just happens that my capabilities are so much greater than anyone else's.

But then, they also say that killing is a terrible crime


End file.
